DarrenConley.com

After we came back from our overnight desert safari, everyone was feeling lazy and a bit too dusty.  I myself had to go into work that day, so I showered as soon as we got home and changed into my work attire.  Larissa had the day off and stayed at home relaxing with my parents.  

I came home in the mid-afternoon, and we decided to spend the later part of the afternoon at the Museum of Islamic Art.  This museum was just completed in December, and while Larissa and I had visited it once before, we had only seen about half of the exhibits.  This is what you see as you walk up the long walkway to the museum entrance:

Once inside, you are immediately awed by the architecture.  The natural light from the ceiling plays off of the geometric designs in a mesmerizing way:

In fact, I would say that the architecture is one of the main reasons to visit the museum at all:

We spent a good hour and a half walking through the various exhibits, and while I would like to show you a good selection of what we saw, the lighting in the museum is often far too dark for pictures to turn out.  A flash would have solved the problem, but flash photography is prohibited.  Nevertheless, I was able to grab a few (slightly blurry) shots of some of the artifacts.

There was this… uh… jar with legs?:

The style of the design on this jar is actually found on many artifacts in the museum, and we were amazed at the amount of detail that was found on works that were over 1000 years old.  

There was a large selection of rugs and carpets, often in miraculously well-preserved condition:

And of course, there were many copies of (or pages from) various editions of the Qur'an.  Some were gigantic slabs of writing as tall as a person, and some whole books were small enough to fit into your back pocket.  Naturally, we saw normal book-sized editions as well:

The museum closes at about 5:30pm, and by that time we were ready to leave anyway, so we walked 15 minutes back to Souq Waqif (remember it from this post?) and caught a taxi at the Karwa stand which took us to our preferred eatery of the night – Thai Snack.

Thai Snack is a Thai restaurant about a 15 minute walk from our apartment which serves decent food made fast and cheap.  Every item on the menu has a picture, so you at least have some idea of what you're ordering.  I tried to order the "chicken anus" appetizer (after looking at the picture and confirming with the waiter that it really was the "buttocks of chicken"), but they were all out.  I ended up going with my standard pad thai, but I'm going to try the anus one of these days – it was only $1.00 CAD for a whole plate!

When dinner was done, we walked back to our apartment and capped off the evening by watching Slumdog Millionaire on DVD.  Love that movie.

The major plan for the next day (Tuesday) was to visit the camel races.  Larissa and I put in brief appearances at work early in the morning.  Larissa decided to stay home from the races because she wasn't sure if we would be in the sun all day, and due to her not-sweating condition, didn't want to risk losing consciousness suddenly (if you don't know what I'm talking about, feel free to ask me).

The camel races are held at the Shahanniya Race Track, just down the street from the Oryx Sanctuary.  For the last half of April, the GCC Emir Races were going on, with 114 Land Cruisers donated by the Emir as prizes for the winners of the major races.  I had visited the track before, but had never seen an actual race there, so while I had some idea of what we would see, I wasn't sure about where we would sit or how long the races would be.

Eric, one of our favourite and most trustworthy drivers, picked up my parents from my apartment and then came directly to the college campus to grab me from work at about 1pm.  We arrived at the race track just after 1:30, and the first race was already underway.  There were no bleachers or official seating areas – some people were just standing at different places around the track watching, but most of the Qataris would follow the race from their Land Cruisers.  Maybe I should explain how this all works –

The race track itself is 5km long and is just dirt and sand.  It isn't a circle or oval, but it twists and turns throughout its length until you end up at the place that the race started from (almost – the track actually ends around the corner from the starting line).  On either side of the race track, however, is a paved road several car-widths wide.  For the duration of each race, the spectators drive on either side of the track on these paved roads (in their 4×4 vehicles) and follow the camels from start to finish.  Here are some of the Qataris getting ready to follow the next race:

Since we didn't have a 4×4 vehicle, we weren't able to follow the camels on the track, so we stood at the starting gate and watched the beginning of a few races:

As you can see, the camels all line up behind the tarp, and when it's time to begin, the tarp is hoisted up by a motor and the camels are pulled, pushed, and yelled at to start running.  

There used to be jockeys riding the camels, but since this was feeding what was essentially a form of child-slavery (the jockeys were often children as young as 8 who were forced into the sport), they now use robot jockeys, which look like small boxes on the back of each camel.  These robots have what looks like an antenna attached to the side of the box, and when the camel owner (who is driving beside their camel during the race) wants his camel to run faster, he presses a button and the antenna thing swings quickly around and whips the camel's butt.  They can also yell at their camel remotely through a speaker on the robot.

After watching the starts of a couple races, we walked to the other side of the starting gate and noticed some Qatari men watching the race itself on a small TV they had set up.  The Al Jazeera Network was broadcasting the race live, and so we watched the rest of the race we had just seen the beginning of on the TV.  

As the race was ending, an older Qatari gentleman stood up and started speaking to my dad.  He asked my father if he would like to drive in his van to watch the race.  My dad, thinking that this man was trying to sell us his services, asked him "How much would it cost?", to which the Qatari man replied "No cost!  Free!  I have special ticket for inside lane!"  Naturally we took the man up on his offer, and the next thing we know he is calling over his driver and instructing him to let us ride in his van for as many of the races as we like.

We jumped into the van (which could hold about 15 people) and took a separate row each (we had the whole thing to ourselves).  Even Eric (they guy who drove us to the race track) got to come with us.  We ended up driving in the inside lane of the paved road on the left of the track, which was usually only reserved for the vehicles with the TV cameras and the race commentators.  We were so close to the action that I could have spit on the camels, if I had been so inclined (which I wasn't).  Here were a couple of the camels in action:

And in this picture you can see the whipping tool that's attached to the robot jockeys:

We ended up watching three full races in the van, and were amazed to be treated to such a privilege.  Incidentally, if you're wondering how fast the camels run, we were pacing them at about 40 kph.  Also, when they run their lips flap around a lot, and they often have foam coming out the sides of their mouths (it's hard to tell in these photos).

After seeing the three races, we figured that we shouldn't abuse the hospitality of the van owner, so we thanked the driver, and got out.  We looked all over the place for the owner of the van to thank him, but we couldn't find him anywhere.  Hopefully the driver expressed our gratitude to him.  It was also really great that Eric got to experience the races with us, since he's lived in Qatar for many years, and had never had the opportunity to see a race for himself.

After we got home, Larissa and my mom went out to get some henna done.  You may remember that Larissa got henna-ed back in October (see this post), and we thought that my mom might enjoy the experience as well.  They had a great time with the henna artist (a lady who works out of her own home) and the girls came home a few hours later to show us their body-art.  Here is the design on one of Larissa's legs:

The evening ended with a visit with our friend Jane, who lives upstairs, and the watching of our weekly episode of Lost, which Jane gets with her TV package and we do not.  Though my parents haven't been following Lost like we have, I like to think that they enjoyed watching it with us, and if they didn't, they were polite enough not to show it.

The next (and final) day of my parents' visit was not particularly eventful.  Larissa and I each had full days at work, and my parents had to spend some time packing to go home (their flight was leaving at midnight that evening).  The only noteworthy event of the day was when we decided to go to the Applebee's near our apartment for dinner.  There is one waitress there who has served Larissa and I every time we eat there (and who remembers us each time she sees us), so Larissa asked the hostess if this waitress could serve us when we were being seated.

It turns out that our waitress was actually just finishing her shift, but she did come over to our table and talked with us for about 20 MINUTES until she had to go home!  She is incredibly bubbly and friendly, so we didn't feel put out by her – in fact, it made the entire evening much more memorable than it would have been otherwise.  The other waitresses and the hostess kept coming over to our table to try to compete for our attention, and at the end of our meal the waitress who was actually serving us brought us our favourite desert for free (because we had become celebrities, I guess!)  It was a great way to cap off the end of my parents' time with us.

At about 9:30pm, Eric came to our building once again and picked up my mom and dad to drive them to the airport.  We said our goodbyes, gave our hugs and kisses, and waved at them as they drove down the street.  We truly felt like we had had the perfect visit with them – one week was neither too much time nor too little.  And best of all, they had not one, but several once-in-a-lifetime experiences to take home with them and share with their friends, just as I've shared these experiences with you.

Sunday was the day for our overnight desert safari.  We had booked it through a tour group called Black Pearl Tours, and since we weren't going on the weekend (remember, Sunday is the first day of our work week), we got a fairly good price.  Larissa was off work that day, but I had to go in for a few hours to take care of some paperwork and look busy in front of the management.  It was no big deal though, since our safari guide wasn't picking us up until 2pm.

Our guide, Hazem, arrived in a big white Land Cruiser (which are ubiquitous in Qatar) and after helping us with our luggage (for the overnight stay) he drove us out to the area outside the Sealine Resort, where we would leave the paved roads and make our own path over the sand dunes.  Here's Hazem and our car:

While Hazem was letting the air out of the tires in preparation for the desert driving, we checked out the camels that were reclining nearby:

The owners offer rides to the tourists for 20 QR ($6.00 CAD) for a 5 minute guided walk.  My parents decided to take advantage of the opportunity.  Here is my mom getting on her camel:

And here are my parents being led away for their ride:

While they were gone, one of the camel owners showed us his pet falcon.  He shook it a bit so that it would spread its wings for this picture:

It was a beautiful bird:

By the time the camels got back, they were feeling a little restless:

My dad paid a little extra to be able to hold the falcon for himself:

Hazem took us careening up and down the dunes of the desert, on paths that only he knows.  He would stop at certain points to allow us to take some scenic photographs:

The water that you see in some of the pictures pours in from the gulf when the tide is high.  It's this water the forms the inland sea in Qatar, near the border with Saudi Arabia.  Here's Larissa looking out over some amazing scenery:

And another similar shot, at a different stopping place:

Larissa really enjoyed sitting on top of the high sand dunes:

What Larissa didn't enjoy as much was the crazy driving that Hazem did when we were dune-bashing.  Often we'd be driving on top of a large dune with a drop on the left side of the car that looked almost completely vertical.  You'd think to yourself "There's no way we're going to drive over the edge of that," and just as you finished thinking it, the car would swerve to the left, tip over at a ridiculous angle, and start sliding down the dune.  At this point Larissa would start hyperventilating and grab onto my arm for dear life:

There were also huge dunes that looked impossible to drive up the side of, yet Hazem always found a way to accomplish it.  Sometimes there was sand flying everywhere.  They don't call it "dune-bashing" for nothing:

As the sun was setting, we ended up at the top of the largest dune in that area.  It was quiet and romantic, with a perfect cool breeze.  It's hard to tell from this picture, but Larissa is right on the edge of this dune (and actually hanging over it a bit).  You might get a better sense of the scale if you click on the picture and look for the people and vehicle on the far left side:

As it started to grow darker, Hazem drove us to the camp site where we were staying that night.  It was actually too dark to take pictures when we arrived, so I took the following shots early in the morning after I got up.  This was the tent that Larissa and I slept in:

These were some of the other tents on the site, including the dining tent on the far left:

This was where my parents chose to sleep:

And this was the pit where we had a campfire after dinner, and tried some of the shisha pipe (or "hubbly-bubbly" as they like to say in the Middle East):

Dinner was a buffet of Arabic dishes (hummus, rice, BBQ chicken etc.) along with some more American options (fries).  There was actually a lot that one could do at the camp.  They had 4 wheeled ATVs that you could ride, a soccer pitch, a volleyball court in the sand, Foosball, a pool table, even satellite TV, if you wanted to hook it up.  We decided to go more traditional and leave off the electricity.  The camp was lit only by kerosene lamps and torches, and we spent over an hour sitting around the campfire telling stories and trading facts about the differences between Western and Arabic culture.  The night was quiet, and the stars looked so much brighter than they usually did in the city.  It was fun and extremely relaxing.

In the morning, we got up fairly early, since the sun was up before 5am, and as you can see from the pictures above, we slept in tents that were open to the outside.  After a quick breakfast, we got ready to head back home to the city, but not before getting my parents to dress up in some traditional Qatari clothes:

Personally, I think the style suits them.

Friday morning is church time in Doha, and while Larissa and I have been doing our own church at home lately (using the podcasts from The Meeting House), we occasionally used to go to Grace Fellowship, which meets on the other side of the city, close to our workplace.  So we decided to take my parents to Grace and show them how typical North American-style church can easily be done with very little cultural relevance in our part of the world as well.

The service was fine, and the highlight was being able to talk with our friend Michael, who we hadn't seen in many months.  He is the one I mentioned back in this post who invited us to hang out at one of his student's farms.  We also shook hands and spoke to some other nice acquaintances we have there, and introduced my parents.  It was not a bad way to spend a Friday morning.

We spent the afternoon being lazy around the apartment, and in the late afternoon went out to one of the villa compounds for a BBQ that was being put on for those of us who had participated in the Boot Camp fitness group on campus for the past semester.  Even though Larissa and my parents hadn't come out to boot camp before, I got special permission for them to tag along:

We pretty much spent our time hanging out by the pool and chatting with people:

There were some awards given out (none of which I received, since I am more of a general all-around-fitness kind of guy, and do not excel in any one area) and a whole lot of meat was piled on the grill.  John and Mark, two of the instructors, each brought a cut of beef with them which was awe-inspiring to behold – like the take-out that Fred Flintstone gets during the opening credits.  Hence these two pieces of meet came to be known that day as the "Flintstone Steaks".  I believe the actual term is "South African cut".

Our family stuck to our mediocre hamburger patties (it was BYO beef), although I made a mental note to bring steak next time I'm invited to a BBQ.  All in all it was a fun night of socializing with other Canadians.

The next day we had an outing planned with the Qatar Natural History Group (QNHG) to go to the Oryx Sanctuary, which is about a 40 minute drive outside of Doha.  Joanne (a friend of ours who lives in our building and who is involved with QNHG) graciously offered to drive all of us, so we met her at about 7:45am and headed out.

For those of you who have no idea what an oryx is, you can read the Wikipedia article, because I'm too lazy to write about it here.  What I will say is that it is endangered, and is the national animal of Qatar (it appears in the Qatar Airways logo, and in the Olympic symbol that Qatar used in their bid to hold the games).  The Oryx Sanctuary is not usually open to the public, but the QNHG had made arrangements for a large group of us to visit.

One of the main things that we saw at the Sanctuary was (no surprises here) a herd of oryx:

One of their distinctive features is the horns that stick almost straight up.  We also saw some gazelles, which had some special name which I forget:

The animals were generally very shy, so it was good that I had brought my zoom lens in order to get the pictures you see above.

After checking out the animals, were were led down the road to a building that housed a reception area and small theatre:

We filled the theatre to capacity (and then some), and a Qatari gentleman gave us a wonderful presentation about the oryx and the work of the sanctuary in preserving the species (through vaccination, protecting them from poachers, breading programs, etc.)

We were then shown a 45 minute movie about the oryx in Qatar.  I'm told that the movie was great, but I have to take my family's word for it, since I fell asleep about 10 minutes into it.  There's something about a comfy seat and a dark room that just knocks me out.

When the presentation was done, we walked around a bit more and took a few more pictures before deciding to head back.  We capped off the morning by showing my parents around Villagio Mall (the other huge mall in Doha) and having lunch (with Joanne) at a wonderful French restaurant in the mall itself.

Saturday night we decided to take my parents to Souq Waqif, which is the old Arabic market in downtown Doha.  When we told me dad that we were going to the old marketplace, he thought that we were talking about a place where they sell fruits and vegetables, but he figured "Oh well, I'll go along for the experience".  While you can buy many foodstuffs at Souq Waqif, there is actually a whole range of products that you can pick up there, and the major draw is that you can haggle for good prices.  Many of the local Qataris do most of their daily shopping at the souq.

Most of the souq is covered, well-lit, and air conditioned, which is not exactly how a traditional Arabic souq would have been in the past:

However, there are many outdoor shops as well:

And there is one guy who will create custom-made bracelets for you, for only 20 Riyal (about $6.00 CAD).  He heats up this wax-like stuff over the coals of his little fire, then shapes the wax (you can choose your colour) into a bracelet made to your own taste and size specifications.  Just watching him work is entertaining:

Our favourite place to hang out in Souq Waqif is the street with all of the outdoor restaurants and cafes:

After showing my parents around the various shops and stalls (including the fairly large bird and pet market) we parked ourselves outside a Malaysian restaurant and ordered an extremely tasty dinner (which we received a substantial discount on – thank you, Doha Entertainment Book!)

While we were eating, we saw our friend Jinnyn walking past, and introduced her to my parents.  she is one of the most bubbly, energetic, smiley people we've ever met, and since we hadn't seen her in several months, we had a lot to catch up on.  It seems that she's been hanging out at Qatari weddings and get-togethers almost every weekend!  It helps that she regularly interacts with the female students at Qatar University, since she works in student affairs.

Jinnyn gave us the low-down on what it's like to go to the girls' part of Qatari weddings (the men and women are split up for the celebrations).  She explained to us that the women are dressed to the hilt (Jinnyn had worn a ballroom gown to one wedding, and was under dressed!) and spend a lot of time dancing and essentially trying to impress the older women who have single sons, so that they will be chosen for a good future husband.  I won't say much more about Qatari weddings here, since Larissa and I are still hoping to experience one first-hand, but it suffices to say that it was an extremely interesting conversation.

When we were finished dinner, we relaxed outside and soaked in the cool night air and the lively atmosphere.  Hints of shisha smoke wafted over us now and then, and people from 15 different countries walked past us in a continual multicultural procession of expats and locals.  The temperature was in the low 20s, and the evening breeze caressed us as we breathed the contented sighs of those who had finished a delicious outdoor meal.  The perfect end to a wonderful weekend.

Wow, am I ever behind on my blogging.  As I write this, I'm sitting in a hotel room in Amman, Jordan, watching Larissa get ready for bed on our first day of our between-semesters vacation.  However, as you may have guessed from the title of this post, I'm not writing about Jordan… yet.  That comes after I finish writing about my parents' visit to Qatar, which happened LAST week.  I figured that if I didn't get writing about this now, I would have two huge event-filled weeks to post about, and when that is combined with beginning-of-new-semester responsibilities, the weight of the workload would be overwhelming.

So let me tell you about my parents' visit.

My mom and dad arrived in Doha a week ago last Tuesday (April 14th) in the late evening after about 17 hours in transit.  Larissa and I pre-purchased their visas and also booked a service which would meet my parents in the arrivals terminal and fast track them through all of the customs and arrival process.  The service worked out beautifully, and my parents were through customs and hugging us with a minimum amount of hassle or delay.

By the time we were back at the apartment it was just after 11pm, so we showed them around our place and chatted about our plans for the upcoming week for about 45 minutes, and then tried our best to get to sleep.  It was difficult, not just for my jet-lagged parents, but for Larissa and I as well.  All of the excitement left us pretty wound up.The next day Larissa and I had to go into work, so we left my parents to sleep in, and hopped on the shuttle bus for the college.  The semester was pretty much finished, so we just stayed until after lunch, and came home at about 1:30pm.  My parents were awake and mobile, so we talked about what to do with the rest of the day, and ended up heading out to the City Center mall – one of the largest malls in Doha.  

After spending some time walking around the mall and eating at a fairly upscale Arabic restaurant, we came back to the apartment, just in time for Larissa and my mom to do some silk painting with our friend Arale.  Larissa has been taking silk painting classes from Arale for a few weeks, and my mom was happy to try it out.  Here is my mom during the beginning stages of her work of art:

Eventually her painting turned out like this:

Larissa, who has had a bit more practice in refining her technique, produced this painting, which I truly think looks absolutely amazing:

Since the silk painting was a girls-only activity, my dad and I hung out at the apartment.  We watched a movie, and I showed him some of my Wii skills:

The next day (Thursday), we took my mom and dad to work with us and showed them around campus.  Since the semester was pretty much over, there wasn't a lot of activity around the school, but they got a decent tour of the facilities, and got to meet some of our colleagues.  I knew that our college was desperate for Instrumentation instructors, and since my father worked in Instrumentation for about 30 years, I thought that it might be a good idea to introduce him to some of the higher-ups in the Instrumentation program.  

We ended up getting an extremely interesting and informative tour of the facilities of the technical training department, and my dad had an impromptu interview with the Dean of the Trades Programs.  They essentially said that they are indeed anxious to hire Instrumentation teachers, but that my father should apply through the regular online process, if he's interested.  My dad already has a good job back in Canada, but I think he was more interested in seeing what kind of offer they could make him.  It would be cool to have my parents around in Doha, but we'll see if anything comes of it.

In the evening, we had all been invited to visit the family farm of one of my students from the past semester.  This was a real privilege, since most of the staff at the college (even those who have worked in the Middle East for several years) have never had the chance to visit Qataris at their homes, and this was actually the second time that Larissa and I were able to accept such an invitation (although this time was different than our first experience).

My student (I'm not mentioning his name to respect his privacy) picked us up at about 8pm from our apartment and drove us about 10 minutes outside of the main city of Doha to a smaller residential district.  After driving through a neighbourhood of houses, he mounted the curb and continued through the desert for another 10 minutes, until we arrived at a collection of tents and animal pens.  There were sheep, goats, horses, chickens, and 6 or 7 camels:

After meeting my student's brothers, cousins, uncles, and father, we were told that they were going to milk one of the camels.  Camels' milk is considered a delicacy in this part of the world, and being offered fresh milk is a real privilege.  We watched as my student's father milked the camel (in a very similar way that one would milk a cow):

Eventually we had a huge bowl full of milk:

When the milking was done, we all walked over to where the tents were and sat down on a couple of large carpets outside.  Each of us was given a small glass of the camel milk (like a double-sized shot glass), and they also offered us tea and coffee.  I had already tried camels' milk before (though not 5 minutes out of the animal fresh) so I wasn't too worried about having it again, but my parents were a little more hesitant.  However, after the first sip, my dad really enjoyed it.  It tasted like cows' milk that was slightly creamier and a little bit sweeter.  The Qataris drink a ton of camels' milk, and many of them simply gulped it down from the bowl it was gathered in.

The only people with English good enough for conversation were my student and his similarly-aged cousin, but the rest of the older men sitting with us tried their broken English with us, and my student would translate if there were any problems.  Everyone was extremely friendly and welcoming, and my student's father said that we were welcome to come out to the farm any time we wanted.  

Soon it was time to head over to the house for dinner, but not before taking a few more pictures with the camels.  My student's young brothers and cousin really liked the animals:

They were hugging this camel as I took this picture with my family and one of the older cousins:

For dinner, my student drove us back to the residential area and parked at his grandfather's house, which is where the family gathers to spend time together on the weekends.  We didn't go into the home itself (since it is more for family, and not for guests), but rather were led into a large rectangular receiving room with carpet and comfortable furniture around the perimeter:

After some light conversation, it was time to eat.  My student laid a tablecloth on the floor in the centre of the room, then came back again with a huge platter of rice and roast lamb.  The lamb had been taken from the family herd and killed just a few hours earlier, and was the freshest meat I have ever eaten.  The rice had fried onions, spices, cashews, and a few eggs mixed in for flavour, and was extremely delicious.  Here is the tray with the entire meal on it (you can see the head of the sheep on the right side):

We all sat on the floor, and using our right hands, tore off the meat from the bones and scooped up the rice.  It was a little messier than we're used to in Canada, but there were far less dishes and utensils to clean afterward!

The meat was absolutely delicious, and the rice was the best I had ever tasted.  I kept digging through it to snatch up the cashews.  Early in the meal, my student reached into the mouth of the lamb and ripped out the tongue, once he saw that the rest of us weren't interested in eating it.  I was a little worried that my mom might not take to eating on the floor with her hands, but she got right into it:

We were all very proud of her:

After dinner, it was time for tea and coffee.  Tea was served in the same type of glasses that we used for our camel milk earlier:

My student also brought in several plates of sweets.  My favourite were these sticky sweet dough balls, which were a lot like honey-dipped timbits:

After tea, my student informed my mom and Larissa that his mother would like to meet them out in the back garden of the house.  Once again, this was a real privilege, since Larissa had never had the chance to meet with Qatari women (all of her students are male), and my mother would not have the chance again on this trip.  So they were led out to the garden, and actually spent a good 45 minutes there, while the boys hung out in the reception room.

After they came back (I had to call Larissa on her cell phone and tell her I was getting sleepy – it was almost 11pm by this point) we got the low-down on what they talked about.  My mom said that my student's mother was very beautiful and looked quite young (she was actually in her early 40s).  She had been married at 14 and had her first child at 15.  Since then, she had borne 11 children, and her youngest was 4 years old.  Both Larissa and my mom felt honoured to be able to meet with her, and were fascinated by her life and experiences.

It was so wonderful to be able to share such an authentic cultural experience with my parents that night.  These are the types of stories that their friends back home will love to hear about, and which my parents will love to share.  We were only two days into my parents' visit, and already the trip had been more than worth it.

Greetings friends, acquaintances, and lurkers.  It's been a little while since I've posted, mostly because I have a whole pile of photos from Dubai (from over a month ago) that I've been sitting on and waiting to write about, but every time I think about doing so, the task seems too overwhelming.  So if you want to see pictures from our time in Dubai, I advise you to check out Larissa's photo album on Facebook.  I'm giving up on it.

In more recent news, my parents are coming to visit us here in Doha for a week, and they're arriving this evening (in about 3 hours, to be exact).  This is the first time that anyone we know is coming to visit us, so naturally we're both incredibly excited.  For someone like me who has a healthy show-and-tell complex, this is like crack on cinnamon toast.  I'm really looking forward to showing mom and pop around our digs, and dispelling all of their misconceptions about the Middle East.  The other day on the phone, my mom asked me if you're allowed to chew gum here.  No, I'm not making this up.

We hired a cleaner recently, due to Larissa and me (a) being too lazy to regularly clean our apartment, (b) fighting every time we discuss cleaning the apartment, and (c) wanting to support the lower-income segment of this culture a bit more.  So we pay a nice Sri Lanken fellow named "Sathi" about $30 per week to do our dusting, vacuuming, and floor cleaning on Mondays.

After seeing the amount of dust that regularly collects in our place, Sathi recommended that we tape around our windows (which are not insulated anywhere near the standards of windows in Canada) to prevent so much of the desert from sneaking into our living space.  He offered to do it for us in fact (since it would make his job easier), so we paid him a bit extra to take care of that.  We never really open our windows anyway.

In the course of doing the taping, Sathi informed us that there was a lot of dust covering our curtains (something which we were already aware of, but had failed to sufficiently care enough about to let it alter our lifestyle) and he recommended cleaning them in order to maximize our dust-banishing efforts.  So last week we pulled down five sets of heavy curtains and hauled them off to our local cleaners, along with some dress shirts and pants.  The curtains (and other laundry items) were ready to be picked up yesterday, and since I had some time before I had to leave for work (Larissa had already left), I set out to try to retrieve these newly cleaned items on my own.

Our preferred laundering establishment is only about a 5 minute walk from our apartment, but I realized on the way that I didn't have enough cash on hand to cover the bill, so I walked past the laundry place to the bank several doors down.  I arrived at the bank to discover that the ATM was out of service, and the bank itself was not open.  So I ended up walking a couple blocks further to the ATM near Doha Clinic.  At this point I realized that this unplanned distance was going to cut into my "getting ready for work" schedule, so I backtracked a bit more briskly to the laundry place once I had my extra cash in hand.

On the way back to get the laundry, I received a text message from my service provider saying that my prepaid phone balance was due to expire that day, and that I should top up my funds if I didn't want my service to be interrupted.  Naturally, the only place open at 8am that could sell me a phone card was on the other side of my laundry guy.  So I walked past the laundry place for the second time in 15 minutes and ran into the variety store 4 doors down.  Once I had my phone card, I finally arrived to pick up my laundry, and threw my slip down on the table.

Now, when I dropped off the laundry 4 days previous, Larissa had helped me carry half of it, and it had seemed like a daunting trek back then.  When the proprietor of the laundry establishment had lain all of my newly washed items in front of me, I realized that there was no way in Allah's sun-baked desert that I was going to be able to haul my crap back to my apartment alone.  The laundry guy was evidently thinking the exact same thing, because he said to me (in an Indian accent that was full of forlornment and pity) "Oh Mr. Darren, how you are going to take these to your home?"  I could only shake my head and reply "I don't know, man.  I don't know."

The good proprietor (who, incidentally, has remembered my name every time I've gone into his place since the first time I became his customer) spoke some words to his two other employees in a language that was neither English nor Arabic, and then told me, "We will drive you to your accommodation in our bus".  Then the three of us each grabbed some clothes/curtains and loaded them into the small passenger bus that they used to transport laundry around town.  I only needed to travel about 300 meters down the street, but I was immensely grateful for the assistance.  After all, at this point I only had 10 minutes to get my laundry home, carry it up to my 3rd floor apartment, and get changed into my business attire for work.

After pulling up in front of my building, I got the driver to load up my arms with the curtains and clothing, and moved towards the elevator as fast as the laws of physics (given my weight load, muscular development, air resistance, etc.) would allow.  By the time I made it into the front door of our apartment, I knew I was going to drop what I was carrying, whether I had made it inside or not.  Thankfully, my curtains and clothing landed on the couch, and after some frantic dressing (the cuff links are difficult to manage when you're in a hurry) I made it back out the door and onto the school shuttle bus with seconds to spare.

Work this week as been far less frantic than my laundry outings, since final exams were last Sunday (Easter Sunday, to be exact) and I have already finished all of my marking, despite working at a pace that is far too leisurely for the average professional EFL instructor.  And it's a good thing too, because my parents are arriving tonight (which I believe I mentioned above) and Larissa and I would like to spend this week maximizing our visiting time, and minimizing our office-work-time.

The real trick right now is to try to maintain the maximum cleanliness imposed on our apartment by Sathi's visit yesterday so that my parents think it is always this clean.  We're letting my mom and dad use "my" bathroom while they're here, so this morning I got in the habit of not crapping in "my" toilet by defiling Larissa's toilet instead.  All in all, I was happy with the experience, though it took two flushes to teach her toilet how to handle my deposits.

I spent a good hour this evening walking through the apartment and cleaning up some of the residual clutter that may have detracted from the pristine image that we're attempting to convey to my parents later this evening.  You know – putting away the underwear that we had hanging up to dry, making our bed look like we regularly make it up, and hiding the lubricant properly distributing the toiletries among the various bathrooms.  I think we have everything covered, so to speak.

We have a fun schedule of activities lined up for my parents' visit, so I'll try to keep you, my internet readership, well informed.  That is, unless we take too many photos.  Then I may be intimidated into blogging silence once more.